


How it Ends

by Whizbang



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: BAMF Merlin, Canon Related, Comfort/Angst, Cyberpunk, Empathy and inner strength, Future Fic, Hurt Merlin, Immortal Merlin, M/M, Once and Future King, Other, Reincarnation, Sharing a Bed, Slow Burn, Suicide Attempt, Superheroes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-12-17
Updated: 2017-11-02
Packaged: 2018-01-04 22:07:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,235
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1086204
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Whizbang/pseuds/Whizbang
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's been over four thousand years since Arthur has died and was sent over the Lake of Avalon. Merlin is a wreck; watching the world turn and things grow up and die has taken its toll. It is when Merlin is just about to give up on living that a crisp and familiar four thousand year old voice is finally heard.</p><p>   He begins to wonder if there is someone precious waiting after all. </p><p> </p><p>IE:  It's the year four thousand and something, where there's hovercars that are super duper dangerous and there's neon, and metal and robots, and god only knows what else. Merlin is tired of waiting for Arthur, saves many people and is genuinely tired in the meantime.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [the sake of making a Bladerunner inspired fic from a completely medieval concept](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=the+sake+of+making+a+Bladerunner+inspired+fic+from+a+completely+medieval+concept).



   The calm, persistent wind hushed everything, carrying soft twirls of nightly waves on the water’s crest. Old trees, untouched by long, droning years, preserved this timeless place. It was as if Merlin had entered a fortress of past memories, collecting inside the woodland and lake water. This was Avalon, forever lost to the world. Merlin, lost with it, traveled to the center of the lake with purpose.

        “I miss you,” Merlin’s voice was old in his dry throat, “I miss you so badly. So, so badly.”

                        _So badly._

        “Everything reminds me of you! It’s been hundreds of years, and no matter how much time goes by, it feels like double, Arthur! I haven’t gotten even a wrinkle out of all this! It’s unbelievable, I’m waiting out this century, and no one is even left! Why can’t I just,” Merlin’s vision sank to the floor of his boat. He was floating out in the middle of the lake, losing the will to do anything but just stay there, curled up and all alone.

        “Why can’t I just _die._ ” Merlin quietly laughed, and his tears paused on his face hotly. His eyes grew yellow like molten gold. He succumbed in hysteria to the idea of giving up, a thought he'd been fighting down further inside himself since the day he sailed Arthur's body across the lake of Avalon.

 

         "Like everyone else."

 

   Merlin stared down at the bottom of the boat, contemplating heat against its wooden floorboards. His golden eyes circled around a fictional hole he imagined boring into one of the  planks, water slurring out in a deep push, into the fortress of carved elm wood, and over his body until it choked him like it had Arthur long ago.

        “I don’t have anything left.” Merlin’s golden eyes enveloped the boat, every crack and carving was illuminated.

 

                  _The dragon lied._

 

        “It’s crystal clear that I don’t belong. I don’t have anyone who needs me now.”

        “I don’t belong here at all.”

 

   Merlin’s feet felt hot, and then his ankles. Soon, his lower body was hot and moist in golden invisibility. He was getting what he had wanted for so long. _Rest._

   There was a hole, real as Merlin’s flesh and bones, water spilling onto him and covering his young features with truth and the obscenity of suicide. Of self infliction, and desperation. Two hydrogens attacking every single oxygen his body wanted, that his heart rejected.

   The fact of the matter was that he had never wanted to take his own life. The way Merlin saw things now, what he had left was not a life at all. It was Arthur’s death that had killed him, not this impending drown. This was something he deserved. He was undead in youth, and this was mercy.

        “I can’t live forever like this.” His mouth hushed, soon covered too by warm water. No one else needed to hear him anymore.

 

   Slowly, he sank in meditation. His hair swam, and the color yellow shimmered in his strands like electrical circuits. Merlin’s tears were lost, meek and hidden, and his body suddenly separated with the boat that met the bottom of the lake more rapidly. He was standing straight, floating and suffocating.

    It was an awful idea, full of feeling and fear, but Merlin ached for it. He smiled through the pain, his eyes opened in the dark, glowing. The water bubbled, and he opened his mouth to embrace it. He filled his lungs with water, golden water, the hue lit all that touched his body. He was glowing as a candle in the depths of the night, a lantern, brighter as the world became dark and dead surrounding him.

 

   Something watched Merlin, far away. _Too far away,_ thought the something. It came forward; followed the glowing lines in the cracks of the sand and rock stretching far from the center point beneath Merlin’s feet.

        Golden hair, and blue eyes. Heavy chainmail, reflecting Merlin’s pale light.

 

   Merlin’s peace was disrupted by familiar yelling. There was something in the noise of it that couldn’t quite touch him, but could harm him more than suicide.

 _Genuine fear._ Something Merlin hadn't felt in a very long time. Merlin’s golden eyes squinted in confusion. He looked around in the darkness, and saw nothing but flowing sea leaves, and strands of light persevering from the surface.

   It struck him again. Muffled screaming, desperately piercing the vale of reality. Yet Merlin saw nothing. He screamed back at it.

 

         _Let me die._

_I can't do it, Arthur._

_Let me go._

 

    It was then that Arthur Pendragon outstretched his arms to catch Merlin in them. He was close enough now to be tickled by Merlin's hair in watery levitation. He yelled, clearly and forcibly so that Merlin, whatever physical state he was in, he had to understand. He had to.

 

        _You can't die alone._

 

   Merlin's hysteria confused him, the feeling of strong arms cradling him, pushing his heavy weight up with still strength was hard to distinguish as neither real nor hallucination. It just simply was. It moved him, familiar to the curves of his underarms like those hands had been there many times before, and yet Merlin couldn't see a thing. Eventually, hands pressed around his ribs and gripped at his front, hugging their bodies to each other. This had never happened before in life. The yelling hushed to sad kisses, smooth and tender on the back of Merlin’s neck. Warm, despite the cold water filling every crevice of his body.

 

        _Don't die. Not now, no please no. Don't. Not like this._

 

   Merlin opened his eyes. The boat was gone, undoubtedly at the bottom of the lake, as he registered the chill of fresh air. He was laying face up on the shore. Something had rescued him. Merlin gripped his fingers into his palms weakly. He was completely drained of energy. Then, he dug his palms into his eyes, and cried softly to himself. Merlin rubbed his neck, remembering Arthur's lips and scowling back at the memory of Arthur's ghostly arms dragging him up from death. Arthur screaming for him.

        "I don't know what else to do!" Merlin yelled back at the water stubbornly.

   He put his arms around his legs in a humble slump and sobbed with his head down. The lake water rippled and sloshed, surrounding him.

        "I'm mad at you! I'm going to be mad at you for the rest of my eternal life! Let me stand by your side again! That's all I want,” Merlin gulped, renewing his temper, “Or, just let me leave! You're not even here, you prat! You haven't been anywhere in thousands of years, how do you expect me to listen to you now? You don't belong here anymore! Neither do I, I don't have anywhere I belong either. Let me go. I'm begging you.”

        “I'm _begging_ you."

   Merlin's face shriveled into loud moaning and he wiped his eyes with his soaked sleeve.

       "If I had wanted to be saved, I could have saved myself." Merlin laughed, blushing and squinting in audacity.

       “I didn’t need you, and the Earth doesn’t need me anymore.”

   Merlin hiccuped into his hands and sighed begrudgingly.

 

       A few hours later, he tried to walk. His body felt ancient. He looked just twenty five.

 

   The further he went from the lake, the more he thought about Arthur Pendragon at the bottom of it. He wondered if the tower still held his friend's body, or what state he would be in. Merlin’s eyes grew glassy, wondering if he could live there himself; if Merlin was really meant to, one day.

   The streets were always vacant now. Historically important, they were now monuments to the past instead of actual places of common travel. Many would walk along them, in the past, one would think illegally, yet no car nor bus would ever be seen utilizing the cement paths again. Shadows often overtook Merlin’s moving figure from above him. There was a new consequence to car crashes, Merlin thought at the sky. New enough, considering how hovering automobiles had only become an international trend since three hundred and twenty seven years prior. Merlin scoffed at how a number of years he would have once thought was such a monumental amount of time could seem so short and cognizant now. That is what eternal life does to someone, he considered. It buries moments and cycles them into generic and forgotten familiarities. He wondered briefly if he would have enough time with Arthur eventually to treasure. If it would last longer, those fleeting seconds, since it was what he had been waiting for for millenias.

   Lines of street lights and danger flashed above him--two vans up ahead, crashing like mechanical lovers and burning in amber flame and plastic car seats. A child passenger was ejected unsafely from the crash, smog and neon overwhelmed him, as he fell a hundred feet back to the Earth. He tried to grab onto passing skyscrapers as an instinct, yet they slipped and slid, and burned his hands, breaking fingers in momentum, and he was falling, falling deeply, and childishly screaming.

   Merlin had seen this many times before, and he has failed, many times before. A moment too late, a distance too far, this has happened before. Merlin still tried again. He would never stop trying. He opened his mouth, and catched the child in pillows that were most certainly not floating there a split second ago. The child’s momentum slowed down, acceleration halting to a physical equality. He gripped onto the pillow, vomit on his bloody tongue from biting it, and he shivered. Merlin wobbled over to the boy on the floating pillow, breathing heavily and smiling softly. He blinked a few times in thankfulness, took the pillow and child, and hugged him, valuing his existence. The weight of the six year old German baby was precious in his arms, and he smiled deeply as he shushes the sobbing.

        _Don’t die. Not now._

   Arthur’s voice collected in his head. Merlin smiled bitterly at the thought of it.

        _No one needs me._

   Merlin felt guilty as he noticed the child’s grip on his arm.

 

   Cars floated softly in traffic above, a canopy of gasoline smoke and moving advertisement pictures masked the two on the street alone, and the car wreckage fuming on the ground beyond them. There was a local news station covering the story of the crash. No one noticed that a child had been saved, nor that Merlin made a cushion out of thin air. No one noticed, which was remarkably similar to how things like this often happened in Merlin’s home timeline.  No one would notice until too late.

   The child was taken to a clinic, his one unbroken hand clutched Merlin’s fearfully, as he looked up at the cars overhead. The German adolescent pictured them falling, all of them, like asteroids on his head. Falling onto him in streams, like dominos. Merlin made conversation along the way, as the company surrounding them both were no less threatening. Merlin supposed he was used to it, acknowledging the fact that this child may have just been orphaned, and that Merlin was the only thing keeping him from wandering, dangerously afraid and naive to the new world.

   Six and Four thousand. Merlin smiled as he talked of princesses and dancing, of snobby kings and likeable dragons who talk in circles. Four thousand years of stories to tell to him, Merlin thought optimistically. Merlin made flowers appear in front of them despite the ancient concrete they ventured on. He started to paint pictures with his eyes to match the stories coming from his mouth. Anything to keep the boy’s eyes off of the sky, even for a few minutes until they arrived.

 

              He never saw the child again after that.

  


   The next day, Merlin sat with his hands folded on the kitchen table, staring out of his window on the eight thousandth floor of his apartment complex. His tea was already cold next to his elbow, but he didn’t care. the Americas talked of a nuclear war, and England cowered to it. Arthur might be out there waiting beyond the cityscape and robotic factory complexes. Arthur might be somewhere out there.

 

   Merlin trekked down twenty flights of stairs before he gave up, as tradition, and took the elevator. Jittery lights no longer alarmed him, but the abrupt stop always would. He walked briskly, and passed many silvery gaming arcades and glassy stock market halls before he got to the train, which led for miles out of town. Whenever out of his house, Merlin took food along with him and hotel coupons to hand out to the homeless train riders, and starving metal workers who repaired the lights in the dark alleys. He pitied them the most.

 

    Arthur’s voice was the most comforting feeling he could ever imagine, and it had been so long since he had new words in his head. Merlin only wished that they were more pleasant to hear, or that those words weren’t out of desperation. Merlin wondered if the begging in their tone made them worth more. He rubbed his hand on the side of his head and and pushed it back disheveled into his hair, sitting on the bench with his newly bought ticket.

 

   At one time, Merlin had been held up for money. A teenager with an overcharged taser gun glowered at him madly, begging him for his credits. Before he could react, a homeless woman who had been watching out for Merlin tried to rescue him. He would never forget her face, no matter the few moments it took for the teenager to decisively strike her down. Merlin remembered the daisy he put in her silvery hair and the luxurious clothes he replaced on her body before he called the police to take what was left of her away...

 

        “Are you okay, boy?” A small voice brought Merlin away from his thoughts.

        “You were making a very unpleasant face, and I was wondering what could make a handsome young man like yourself make a face like that.” Merlin looked up, and cocked a brow in a way that would have made Gaius proud.

        “But then, I thought I’ve seen a face like that before,” The voice sighed. Their daze suddenly wore off enough to laugh lightheartedly and continue on,

        “Sorry, dear, I’ve said too much! Don’t mind me, I can’t stand to keep my mouth quiet. It’s a curse that comes with the age.” The voice belonged to an old woman resting nearby. He noticed she wore a ridiculous hat that was the style many years ago, most definitely in her youth. Merlin made a mental note of the irony. Her entire life felt like a blink of an eye to him.

        “I’m just nervous. You know, um,” he half grinned in a humble stutter, “but my problems aren’t very important.”

        “Everyone’s problems are very important.” She looked appalled at him.  

        “I’m alright.” He assured her.

        “Whatever is going on, it will be okay, boy.” She nodded her head, almost positive, yet her eyes looked sad for him, as if she pitied him.

        “Really, I’m alright.” He tried to shake off her kindness, because it baffled him.

   The woman smiled at him earnestly. She took out a pair of shiny dog tags from her pocket and hummed quietly as she read the name mentally before sharing the tags with Merlin.

        “This was my husband,” she stated plainly, “and this is all I have left.”

   Merlin’s eyes widened and then shrunk at her numbly. He empathized, but something felt awkward about it. He didn’t know what he needed to say, even if he felt anything would do, he just couldn’t speak to her.

        “Whatever you’re going through, you’re not alone.” She kissed the dog tags gently and held them out in front of him in aged palms, smiling to herself, it seemed. Her liver spots shown on her wrists and arms very clearly.

        “Whoever you miss, you’ll see them when the time comes. We all have to carry on. Don’t make life a wait, son, because it can be so much more than that. Make life special.” Merlin looked away from the tags and to her in shock, yet she continued on.

        “That’s what they would have wanted for you.” She patted his cheek gently and then turned away to get off of the train. A child on her opposite side came to assist her. The eight year old girl looked curiously at Merlin, and then they were gone, and their seats were taken by businessmen traveling to the suburbs, as if the woman and child were never there to begin with.

 

   Stop after stop passed by, Merlin wiped away silent tears as he stared out the window, faking nonchalance.

  
   Now all that was left to do was get out of the rail car. One step, and the hours of waiting in that seat would be behind him. The woman in her weird hat gave her advice too late. He was already returning to his friend, and today was the day that the waiting was over. 

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's been so long since I've written fanfiction. It's been so long since I've read any? I think this story was something I remembered happily through the years, about a bunch of people coming together to help Merlin without knowing who he is, or what he did. It means a lot to me now. I'm going to keep putting the pieces of this story together for a little while longer.
> 
> If you are reading this, thank you. I hope you like it.  
> ____

   The train arrived at the moss-covered rail station by daybreak. Merlin's eyes batted open. His attention broke the seal of lethargy, a seal that manifested itself in the small flakes of crust resting in the edges of Merlin's eyelids. The robotic voice of the automated train engineer read the stop number over the intercom. It was like Merlin had woken from a dream and was about to enter another.

        _Approaching stop number 01111010. Serial repeated. 01111010._

   Merlin stood hastily from the metal seat. The crowded train car was now completely empty.

        _Last stop,_ said the robotic voice. Merlin's hands sweated nervously.

_Please exit momentarily. Route number 01000001-01110110-01100001-01101100-01101111-01101110 will reset following stop 01111010._

            Merlin sighed. After gradually slowing down, the train car finally came to a complete stop.   

        _Stand clear of the opening doors please._ The doors opened. 

 

             Merlin rushed outside. Immediately, the doors shut behind him. The car began to speed up, and then it was just a soft whistle in the distance. It drifted away like a trivial thought. Merlin watched his step as he climbed over fallen concrete cinders to reach the platform exit. The train station was long out of use for common people, but remained on this route somehow for Merlin to visit Arthur's lake as he did weekly. There was a point in Merlin's life, he thought, when this station was mint, the train cars were freshly painted, and the engineers were human. At that part of Merlin's life, he used the train almost three times a day to see if Arthur had come back. Once in the early morning, the dew on the grass by the water's edge was freshest then, and the sun would rise from the far end of the lake, where Merlin thought maybe Arthur would rise with it, too.

    **No.** If not in the morning, Merlin wondered if Arthur would rise from Avalon at midday. He rode the train to the lakeside with two bagged lunches of whatever he could afford. 

    And since Arthur never rose in midday, Merlin also came deep into the night. At those times, he stepped out of the train station like a sleepwalker. He sat on the grass by the lake like he had floated to it, and collapsed with all of his weight. He usually came to the Lake after a particularly vivid dream, not being able to sleep, and not expecting Arthur to really return in the night, but comfortable waiting. 

 

    That part of his life was mostly train rides and wishful thinking. 

 

     Exiting the abandoned train station, Merlin walked for a short distance to the Lake's path. A dark storm cloud heavily inched closer in the distance. The path was covered by overgrown grass, fallen trees, and a special kind of illusion magic that made it extremely uninteresting to everyone but Merlin. There were many times in the past that Merlin had seen contractors on the brink of developing the lakeside with some sort of capitalist investment scheme in mind. Merlin made them all forget. It kept him up at night that maybe one of them would remember one day and return, but the strong illusion spell gave Merlin a sense of relief. Whenever he returned, he could feel it pulsing in a jagged circle around the blessed perimeter. It's power was tied to Merlin's desire to protect Arthur, and even if Merlin's desire to live on had been waning, his will to keep Arthur safe never once did.

 

    Merlin reached the side of the lake in the same way he had millions of other times, his footprints almost fossilized in the dirt, he matched them perfectly again. He looked up, preparing a smile.

 

     "You told me not to die alone. Where are you, then? Show yourself."

 

           Merlin waited for half an hour.

      He thought about the many times he stood by the lakeside hurling insults into the air, stirring up emotions deep within himself in an attempt to dislodge Arthur from whatever held him in the afterlife. 

      "Prat. Not again," Merlin whispered. "Say something."

      There was more silence. Merlin looked like a feeling was forming quietly under his skin. It was in his eyes. They were shifting between confused, hurt, and angry. He closed them. Then suddenly, in an expanding circle around his feet, the ground turned luminescent gold.

      "Am I supposed to do this without you? Save the world. Save everyone, just a little. That child today. Some of the people I pass by. Is that it? And you serve as--what, Arthur? A thought that keeps me alive? Is that all you are now?!" 

 

     The golden grass spread to the roots of surrounding trees. It traced up the cracks between the thick pieces of bark, and flowered up through the branches into golden leaves. Each leaf, reborn as a light bulb. The golden color spread more and more rapidly, until the entire lake was surrounded by golden light. It was dark now. The lazy rain cloud rumbled above him. Merlin yelled.

     "I just want to tell you, in person, I want to tell you everything. I never had enough time! And now I have all this extra time!" A few drops of rain landed on the water, as if Arthur was replying by moving the ripples. "All this extra time, but you're not even here!" The gold grew a few shades brighter in his eyes and strengthened in the world around him. 

    A drop of rain hit him on the cheek.

    "You're not even here." Merlin sighed. He grew quiet again. The gold embedded in the trees and earth lifted into the sky, and drifted away. It was carried off in the mist as the rain dribbled down from the sky, heavier and heavier.

    Merlin walked back to the train station again. Like he had done so many times before. He didn't think. He let his feet carry him to the platform. His ticket emerged from his pocket as he hastily entered the empty car. He sunk into the seat. 

 

 

    In the dark rain, Arthur felt his hand emerge from the lake water. At first, he couldn't tell if it was still submerged. The air was thick. His body, youthful, warm, and very much alive, tasted his first breath eagerly. His heart trembled, and his hands shook. The sensation of breezes, moisture, the feeling of blood, the heaviness of armor. He smiled warmly at his skin. At feeling _alive_. 

 

   Arthur dragged his soggy boots up the incline, out of the muddy tracks below the lake water, and onto the grassland. His shirt sagged sloppily on his chest and his chainmail stuck to it. His armor, rusted from thousands of years under stress and wading tides, was brittle and lighter than ever before. Arthur, losing his strength, slumped against the nearest tree. It glowed faintly gold from where Merlin had left it; the residual power lit Arthur as he leaned his weight on its girth. 

             _Where was Merlin?_

 

 Arthur looked into the distance, thinking about what he should say. What any of this _means_. Where to find Merlin. All Arthur could do was look somewhere, vaguely, unaware of what thousands of years had done to the world outside of this lakeside, this sanctuary Merlin had maintained. Arthur's knees bent, and slowly he sunk into a seated position below the tree. He rested there as the rain softened, and the night sky emerged above the clouds.

 

   Merlin arrived back at his apartment, eight thousand floors above ground level, and hundreds of miles away from the very newly alive Arthur Pendragon. He slept in bed, and dreamed about the golden trees, the train ride home, and the bottom of the lake again. Merlin dreamed of a small house there, flooded with water. Inside, Arthur's back was facing him. He began to turn around from his seat by a candlelit table.

   Arthur turned slowly, almost facing Merlin,  but before his face could see Merlin, there was a shrill, deafening siren. Merlin woke up abruptly. He ran to the window, squinting at the sky. It was coming from the neon signs, usually lit with advertisements that repeated the same slogans so often, they no longer registered as noises in Merlin's ears. The sirens rang, very clearly.

 

      ** _Evacuate._**

**_Evacuate._ **

**_Evacuate._ **


End file.
